Lead Me Not into Temptation…for I will Go There Myself!

I decided that I was going to reupholster a sofa. I took the covers off to take to the guy who was going to do the job so that he could measure and let me know how much material I needed to buy. I stripped the cushions on the back porch and left the pieces of foam, leaning against the wall.

I didn’t give it another thought.

I woke up this morning to greet our dogs on the back porch. While Chad slept on in his bed, Fuzzy (our new dog) backed away from me. We got Fuzzy from our local shelter and we suspect that Fuzzy had been abused but his “backing away” this morning was different. He backed away and then ran inside the house.

And then I saw why….

Fuzzy had been scratching the surface of one of the foam pieces. There was foam all over the back porch. Busted!

Fuzzy KNEW what he had done and was acting all guilty. He expected me to get really mad with him so he “took in front” and tried to make himself scarce.

I thought about it…about Fuzzy’s abuse…and decided to show Fuzzy some love. After all I did leave the “temptation” on the back porch!

Living fully means being exposed to temptations but we aren’t dogs, we don’t have an owner/master and sometimes we have to be everything to ourselves when we make mistakes.

We need to show ourselves a little love and compassion, remind ourselves about the path we’re on and what we’re trying to do, tell the truth to ourselves about what happened but don’t make it worse than it is, and renew our intention to MAKE BETTER CHOICES better next time.

The journey is what is important and we must make the most of all the learning we can get along the way.

Beating up on ourselves is not taking us forward. We are always aware when we act in less than stellar ways. Let’s not waste time staying there longer than we need to…